COMMISSION MARCHING IN LOCKSTEP TO MARTINEZ'S, RUSTEBERG'S ORDERS

By Juan Montoya

So this is what you mean when you say you want a "unified" city commission?

After months of tweaking the numbers, raiding the Public Utility Board for its yearly millions, paring departments to the bone and denying employees (except for some police department employees) a cost of living increase, the seven yesmen (and women) voted unanimously to raise property taxes by 6.54 percent.

Where was the sound and the fury?

As Emma over at the Holler has noted, raising the tax rate required two separate votes. During the first reading, Ricardo Longoria and Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa cast dissenting votes while Mayor Tony Martinez, Melissa Zamora, Rose M. Gowen and John Villarreal voted for the increase.

But when it really counted, they all took their marching orders from Martinez and voted for the increase. Longoria had been proven wrong on his claim that he had never voted for a tax increase by a document issued by his own finance department that showed that in seven of the last eight years he had voted for an increase, despite his protests otherwise. This will make it eight out of nine.

Emma noted that the item was not expected to generate neither discussion nor dissent and was placed on the consent agenda.

And even though a breakdown of the PUB budget for the last 10 years indicate that the utility has transferred more than $100 million in free utilities and cash transfers, Martinez crowed up about being proud of not having to go to PUB for a "bailout."

"I haven't been on the job long enough, but I never found that option to be a very good one," he added gratuitously. "If you have to go to savings, go into your own, not somebody elses'."

OK.

Where does he think that PUB generates the yearly $10 million it transfers to the city every budget year? That's right, it generates the money from the ratepayers. In the case of PUB, the overwhelming majority of these ratepayers are residential, the very same people whose taxes he raised. The reason that PUB can generate all that wealth is because the people are paying for their utilities, specifically, their electricity, the utility's biggest moneymaker.

No, Martinez doesn't want to go into PUB savings. Why should he? He is already getting the people's savings, what little they are able to save with the high electric rates.

Remember when the PUB board decided to lower the percentage on late payments? The PUB administration howled that it would cut into their money stream. Apparently, those late payment penlaties were already figured into the money "streams" when the PUB preapred its budget or went on the bond market.

"We're not in the business of doing business, but we are in the business of creating business," said Milton Freedman Martinez.

So the utiity, while it did lower the penalty percentage by half, also raised the reconnection fees charged to ratepayers to makeup for the shortfall.

If PUB did not transfer the $10 million, the city's budget would have to be pared to around $77 million, down from the $87 million budget it passed last week.

"Why can we give the city $10 million a year instead of lowering the electric rates?" asked n angry downtown businessman. "When you can give away the money like PUB does to the city that means that it could pass on the extra money to the residents by lowering the rates. The transfer to me amounts to double taxation on the ratepayer."

As a sop to the overburdened utility payers, PUB this Sunday announced rebates to those who "went green" and installed energy-saving appliances and home fixtures. There is no way that these "rebates" will amount to anywhere near the $10 million the city gets from the residents. However, it does provide a job for the son of former Assistant PUB Executive Director Eddie Campirano, Eddie Jr., who administers the program.

Campirano Sr. is now the director of the Port of Brownsville, his daughter was given a job at UTB by the Juliet Garcia administration at UTB over better qualified candidates, and Garcia's son-in-law is a marketing director for the port.

Martinez has proven that he is the local bankers, bond sellers, brokers, and bureaucracy's best friend. No one ever thought that behind his "Believe in Brownsville" campaign slogan was concealed a strategy to maintain the status quo at all costs. Believe it or not.

Upon taking office, he at once rammed through the pliant commission the issuance of $5 million in certificates of obligation. Now comes the tax hike.

No wonder Fred Rusteberg and his minions like the Tiptons and the Rays spared no expense to elect Martinez and half of the commissioners sitting on the council. They knew they would be getting their money's worth.